Derpy and the Asimadrons
by I Darkstar X
Summary: Book 1 of the Interference Trilogy. Ever have one of those days when you think everyone hates you and you can't do anything right? No, I didn't think so. But Derpy does. A lot. For example, after ruining 2 days worth of confection, she decides it's a good idea to sit in a meadow where a Corvette-Class starship will crash land. Piloted by a cyborg. Rated T for minor violence.
1. Prologue

Derpy and the Asimadrons.

Prologue.

The Universe we live in is cold, grey, heartless, and evil. But, there is a host of races seeking only to help others. Over years and years of conflict, they have drawn the line that protects us from the Evil. However, one race blurs that line, The Assimadrons. Their civilization's life began when a derelict starship carrying billions of eons worth of bacteria that thrived in the cold vacuum of space careened through a star at 10 times the speed of light. The intense heat and friction melded the surviving electric equipment with the bacteria, creating nano-life. The ship could have easily disappeared from history by shooting out of the star system, but instead, it smashed into a massive arid planet. The bacteria slowly evolved, by seeking to better their mechanical structure by absorbing the other biological creatures on the planet. The result was an entire empire of cyborgs ruled by sentient machines. After a few millennia, they discovered Hyper-Warp, the most effective version of faster-than-light travel. With this technology, they explored their galaxy, adopting other cultures, and adding more and more volunteers to the ranks of their empire. One day, one of their starship prototypes, named: Bringer of Ascension, a disc-shaped ship with 2 pairs of slating wings with a pair on top and on bottom, accidentally created a wormhole while testing a new, experimental Hyper-Warp Drive, through which they could see a M-Class planet. That planet was one the Humans have glimpsed through the efforts of Michael Reaves, George Arthur Bloom, David Wise, Michael Charles Hill, Carla Conway, Gerry Conway, Tracy Mann Hill, Gordon Kent, Barbara Petty, Rebecca Parr, Martin Pasko, and Linda Woolverton. The planet's name: Equestron. A planet home to 3 remarkable branches of ponies, Earth Ponies, Pegasai, and Unicorns. At first, the Assimadrons were apprehensive of entering the wormhole. So they sent an unmanned probe to collect a sample of life from the planet. Why? I really have no idea. The probe descended on the planet in the dead of night. Searching for the perfect specimen. Locating a small village, it detected an ideal target, using a a tractor beam, it pulled the specimen into the probe and began to analyze the target. It was an extremely young male Earth Pony, commonly refered to as a "colt". Sifting through his memories, it deduced that he had gotten lost while attempting to follow his mother who was going to talk to someone named Princess Celestia. Once the probe returned to the Bringer of Ascension, the Asimadrons assimilated the colt, turning him into a very special cyborg. He could think for himself. But while they were busy with the colt, the Hyper-Warp Drive on the ship began to overheat from the exertion of keeping the Wormhole open, and soon... The Drive began to go into meltdown, the Drive was going to explode and the Wormhole would close. Quickly, they evacuated the ship, and escaped to a safe distance. But the Wormhole closed. The Asimadrons were deprived of Equestron. The colt was given a name so he could seem more "friendly", Xylo. So life continued on Equestron, and in Equestria uninterrupted by the Asimadrons...

But... The Asimadrons do not give up so easily, they rebuilt the Hyper-Warp Drive that created the Wormhole which they called: Opportunity. So over the course of 12 years, they built a starship that harnessed the power of the sun. A SolarSphere, titled, The Power Core. And now, an eager Xylo waits in a small corvette to return to Equestron and spread the Asimadrons' culture across the planet, starting in his old hometown, apparently named Ponyville...


	2. Chapter 1 Discovery

Chapter 1; Discovery.

One of the Pegasi inhabitants of Ponyville, Derpy, is, shall we say, accident prone. For example, she had once tried to hang a large banner a while back with the help of another Pegasus, who's name is Rainbow Dash, but only succeeded in unintentionally knocking Rainbow Dash through a wooden platform. Her coat is grey, her mane and tail are blond, her, "cutie mark" is 3 muffins. Also, her eyes are amber and point in 2 different directions at once, like a chameleon. She also loves muffins... A lot. On the day the Asimadrons were just about to recreate the Portal to Equestron, which happened to be a Sunday, Derpy was just waking up from a wonderful dream containing, yep, muffins. "Awwwnahhhhh," she yawned, stretching as she sat up on her bed, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She shook her mane and looked out the window beside her bed, which was placed in a corner of a small wooden room. Also in the room, a short bedside table sat beside the head of her bed. On the other side of the room, opposite the bed's side, was a door that seemed as if the wood had varying degrees of age, probably due to "accidents". Opposite the door was a metal dresser and was probably the least damaged thing in the room. It was a gift from a Unicorn named Rarity, (?) to replace the African mahogany one that was literally "reduced to splinters" and who had hated the idea of "such beautiful" and "expertly crafted" dressers being "accidentally damaged". The door led to a short hallway extending both ways, left led to stairs to the ground floor, and the other way led to another door, that door was a guest room, and had not been used as such for, actually, never. Derpy rarely went in nowadays, which kept the room "alive". Opposite that door was one leading to the bathroom, and was more "taken care of" then the other doors, mainly because, who wants someone peaking through a crack while your using the "facilities". The sun seemed much larger then normal to Derpy, but then again, she often saw double due to her eye... "condition", which could make something seem bigger.

"It looks like a beautiful day." she said as she jumped out of bed, tripping mid-jump on her blanket, which was caught on the corner of her bed.

"Ow." said Derpy's as she stood up and rubbed her temples. She headed for the door, reaching over to open the door. She very carefully and slowly gripped the knob, opening it in the same manner. As she carefully closed it, she breathed a sigh of relief. She had managed to avoid damaging her bedroom door for the last 5 days. Derpy turned towards the stairs, her wing barely missing the door. She walked down the stairs pausing to look at a picture.

"When did I get this picture?" she asked herself lifting it off it's peg and looking at it closer. It was a dark green square cut into quarters, a small ring cutout at the point where the quarters converged with a space background. Derpy blinked. When her eyes opened again, the picture disappeared, replaced by a picture of Caterlot. Cautiously, she returned the picture to it's peg and continuing to walk downstairs, often glancing up at the picture. The first floor consisted of a medium-sized living room connected to the kitchen and dining room via an archway. The front door led straight to the kitchen, which seems a little odd. She immediately grabbed a egg muffin from her pantry, consuming it in record time.

"Mmmm..." she moaned contently as she swallowed the last crumb of the oversized muffin. "I love muffins." she said as she grabbed her saddle pack from the hook by the door which she opened, and closed, hard, as she stepped outside.

"Whoops." she said looking at most of the door mechanism in her hoof. "I'll need to get that fixed." she said as she set it on a small bench on her porch. She jumped into the air and flew through the air, heading for Ponyville.

"I'll stop by Sugar Cube Corner first." she thought as she clipped a cloud, causing it to unintentionally spinning it to the ground, landing directly on top of Fluttershy's cottage. As Derpy approached the village, Rainbow Dash was sitting on her usual cloud, daydreaming, when something wet hit her cheek. Her eyes fluttered open, looking for the source of the water. Turns out, a tiny raincloud was floating just above her head. She swatted it away, sending it flying through the air like a bullet. Meanwhile, Derpy was slowing in for landing outside Sugar Cube Corner, but just before touchdown, a certain tiny raincloud smashed into the side of her head with such force, it twisted her flight path, sending her into the door of the shop, just as it opened and Mrs. Cake stepped out, carrying a cake that resembled something from Cake Boss. The resulting collision proved fatal... To the cake that is.

"Ow." Derpy said for the second time that day as she got up and gasped at what was left of what would have put Cake Boss to shame.

"I...I'm..." Derpy stuttered before suddenly realizing that Mrs. Cake was probably underneath almost a metric ton of cake "guts". Panicking, she franticly began to sift through the remains for Mrs. Cake.

"Mrs. Cake? Mrs. Cake?!" Derpy cried as she moved from mound to mound of cake remains. Mr. Cake walked into the front room from the back room holding a tray of small irregular shaped cupcakes. As soon as he saw the scene, the tray dropped from his hooves and made a large clatter when it hit the floor.

"Eigghh" he choked out before fainting, making another loud clatter. Derpy didn't notice, she was too busy trying to find Mrs. Cake in the cake. (No pun intended.) Suddenly, Derpy's hoof collided with something hard,

"Mrs. Cake?!" she cried as she shoved more of the remains away from where she had hit the hard object. In a few seconds, Derpy had "dug up" a seemingly unconscious Mrs. Cake pinned under a cart that was being used for transporting the cake. Derpy shoved the cart off of Mrs. Cake, practically crying.

"Don't be dead, don't be dead." she quietly wished.

"I'm not dead!" Mrs. Cake said angrily, sitting up as soon as the cart was lifted off her. Derpy then noticed that a sizable crowd had formed, which made her blush in shame. But then, she realized that it wasn't her fault. That raincloud caused her to spin out of control, for once it seemed, an accident she caused wasn't because of clumsiness.

"I'm so sorry Mrs. Cake, there was this tiny raincloud and—"

"Derpy," Mrs. Cake interrupted. "enough." she turned and went inside, closing the door behind her. Derpy just stood there, she could feel the eyes of the crowd boring into her. She turned slowly, holding back her tears until she could be alone. She walked away, very slowly, her head down, and very, very sad.

"Why do I keep messing up?" she asked herself in her head. "It's not fair. Why does everyone hate me?" By now, she had reached an old meadow, near the Ever-Free Forest. There she sat down, and commenced to cry, she didn't know how much time passed before, a new star appeared in the sky, one growing to the size of the moon, and bigger, with the naked eye, you could see through the Portal, right at the SolarSphere. Behind that, a planet smothered in electric machinery, pulsing, and blinking like a giant metal heart. Would have Derpy looked up, she would have seen Xylo's small ship pass through the Portal and into the atmosphere. It wasn't until Xylo was just about to (crash) land next to her that she finally looked up. The shockwave from the impact threw Derpy back a few feet, she landed hard on her back.

"Ow!" she said for the third time that day. propping herself up with her fore-hooves, she watched, too afraid to move or say anything, as Xylo's craft hissed, releasing hot steam from some reactor. Suddenly, a bang erupted from the top side of the ship, like someone was pounding on a metal door. After 3 more bangs, the hatch burst, and Xylo hopped out and looked around. His entire body was covered in a black atmospheric suit, with a large opaque visor.

"Hhhghh." Derpy choked, which caused Xylo to jump, turn around, and trip over the wing of the ship. Just before he hit the ground, 5 strange metal spider things jumped out of the ship and rushed toward Derpy, who only noticed them until it was too late. 2 clamped down on her front-hooves, perpendicular to her body. Another 2 clamped down on her back hooves, forming an acute angle. While the last one slowly made its way over, like it had all the time in the world. Meanwhile Xylo stood up, his visor had shattered, and he was removing the helmet. Derpy didn't expect to see a pony's face, and such a handsome one at that. Xylo was standing bipedal-style holding his helmet with his remaing hooves, thinking the exact same thing about Derpy, except he expected for her to be a pony. Right away, Derpy noticed that his left eye looked like it was acually an amber light, while his right eye was real and also amber, like hers. His mane was black and silky, but then the last spider thing clamped down on her neck, not tight enough to choke her, but hard enough to keep her from moving her head. Xylo noticed this and walked closer, standing next to her head,

"What is your name?" he asked, smiling friendlily.

"D-Derpy." she said, she had a real name, but Derpy was what everyone called her, so it seemed the better option.

"Have you been exposed to any lethal radiation within the last month?" he asked, tilting his head to one side. Derpy blinked.

"What?" she asked, confused.

"Evidently not." Xylo said, "I'll be right back." he said and with one final look into her eyes, returned to the crashed ship and pulled out a metal backpack, he pressed a button on the side and 2 clamps folded out from the backpack. He returned to Derpy and showed her the device in his hooves.

"This backpack was made for you. Did you know that? It was made for you and all the creatures on this planet. Once you put it on, you will see." he said, smiling again. Derpy looked at the backpack. It seemed the alien wasn't going to let her go otherwise.

"Okay. Put it on." she nodded and then felt herself rise into the air, like she was floating up, the spiders let go but Derpy still could not move.

"You will be able to do this too, once you've been Ascended." Derpy shot him a fearful look.

"Ascended? What does that mean?" Derpy rotated in the air away from Xylo as he replied,

"You'll see. It's the most wonderful thing... Ok, second most wonderful." he placed the back pack on her and pushed another button.

"This may hurt." he said, "But I'm right here." Derpy raised an eyebrow.

"...OkkkkOWW!" she cried as a hypodermic needle injected a fluid into her shoulder.

"Shh, sh. The worst is over." Xylo said, lightly placing a hoof on her head.

"Yeeahh..." Derpy slurred as the instant sleeping fluid kicked in. "Youuuuu..." was all she said before falling asleep.


	3. Chapter 2 The Assimadrons

**Chapter 3; The Assimadrons.**

Derpy was still asleep when the metal backpack that had expanded like that suitcase did in Iron Man 2 was almost finished with basicly enveloping Derpy in black metal, except her head. Xylo still stood next to her, he smiled down at her.

"So picturesque..." he thought. "and her eyes, ethereal beauty." he returned to his ship and steppted inside. the ship was black with dark green lights blinking on and off on all sides of the main control room. This room had a scaffold-like floor with a green glow beneath it. The door was near the front of the small ship on the right. At the front was a rotating chair facing an arch-shaped console with many high-tech equipment and read-outs. At the back was another room separated from the main control room by a automatic sliding door. Xylo headed straight for the back room, pausing only too push a couple buttons by the exit hatch. The door automaticly opened when Xylo came near. The back room is the storage room. This room is filled mostly with large metal chests, with random numbers and letters on the sides like, , or HDK-93936.82GS.

"Where is it?" he asked himself as he looked through the storage compartments, looking for the Mobile Transport Unit Command Card, or MTUCC. In compartment 9-B, he found it.

"Here it is, now, I need to insert it into the CCTD." The MTUCC is is like a orange floppy disc, except... Acually it's just an orange floppy disc. The CCTD stands for Command Card Transformer Device. What it does, it take the information on the Command Card and uses it to change the practical use of Xylo's corvette. (I don't mean the car.) Rushing back into the main control room, Xylo ran over to the control panel and pushed a button marked: CCTD. Just above the button, a slat opened. Xylo pushed the MTUCC into the slat, which closed once the CC was completely in. At once the ship began to move. The wings angled straight down, to serve as legs, with the laser cannons at the tips flattened to become feet, the back engines extended and rotated up so the pointed at an angle away from the ship. After a few seconds, the ship stood up. Xylo opened the exit hatch again, now at least 20 feet off the ground. Xylo just jumped down. Derpy on the other hand was just waking up. The backpack thing had finished, it did not completely cover her entire body, but most of it. Strangely, the chest-piece resembled a straight rib cage, as opposed to a sheet of metal for protection purposes.

"Ohhhh..." she moaned, sitting up and rubbing her head.

"Hello Derpy." Xylo said, somehow managed to land next to her, bipedal, without Derpy noticing.

"Ahhgh!" Derpy yelled as she jumped, scrambling to her feet. Xylo raised his front hooves and held them out in front him, innocently.

"It's okay, calm down. How do you feel?" he asked smiling again. Derpy slowly calmed down, watching Xylo. Her eyes drifted to his and for a moment, nothing happened.

"I feel..." Derpy said before blushing and looking away. "I feel... Different. More, alert. More..." Then she noticed the MTU.

"Whaaa..." she stammered, backing away from the transformed ship.

"What is that?" Xylo finished, taking a step toward Derpy.

"It's my ship. I used it to come here through that." he pointed up at the Portal. Derpy looked up too and gasped when she saw the SolarSphere.

"Is...is that... Your home?" she asked shakily, looking back at Xylo. Xylo chuckled and took another step closer.

"No. That is what my people call the SolarSphere. It uses our sun," he pointed at the sun. "to keep the Portal open." Derpy nodded and turned to look at the Portal again.

"What's a Portal?" Derpy asked, looking at the outline of the Portal, which shimmered like water dancing on a sea floor.

"Well," began Xylo, sitting down cross-legged. "My people believe that there are 2 examples of, that." he said pointing at the Portal again. "The one called Wormholes you can find if you look hard enough, is like a really long multi-colored tunnel that you can use to get somewhere much quicker then you would normaly be able to do. The other kind are usually much smaller, and very easy to make if you have the right machines. These ones, called Portals, you can see right through. The one above us is the second kind." he finished and looked back up at the Portal.

"I acutally came from this planet." he said looking back at Derpy. Derpy's eyebrows shot up.

"Really?" she asked, intrigued. She sat down across from Xylo. Xylo smiled at her again, before continuing.

"Yes, I don't remember much about this place except, my hometown was a village named Ponyville." Derpy grinned and said,

"That's where I live too!" Xylo jumped up and said,

"Perfect! Could you take me there?" Derpy smiled and nodded, also standing, but not noticing that she was standing bipedal-style.

"Can you fly?" she asked. Xylo smiled and turned to the MTU.

"Watch." he said simply as arches of black metal unfolded and folded untill 2 large cylinders sprouted from his back, like a jet pack, he shot straight up and hovered next to the entry hatch of his ship. He waved for Derpy to join him. Derpy's jaw dropped.

"How..?" she began but didn't finish because her own jet pack sprouted and activated, sending her straight up,

"AHHHHHHHHH!" she screamed as she went zooming in random directions for about 26 seconds.

"Derpy, try and hover. Think the word 'hover' and you'll do it." he called to her as she zipped right under the MTU and then up.

"Ok!" she yelled back. She closed her eyes,

"Hover." she thought, the rockets decreased power and she slowed down, before stopping directly in front of Xylo, hovering. She opened her eyes again, then she blushed at how close she and Xylo were hovering.

"Uhhhh..." Derpy said, looking away. "I didn't catch your name." she asked, trying to feel less embarressed and/or awkward.

"Xylo." Xylo said queitly before backing up and opening the hatch.

"After you." he said, bowing. Derpy nodded and attempted to make it into the ship without bumping into anything. Unfortunately, when she reached out to pull herself into the ship, the jet pack deactivated, but a small, green light shot out from Xylo's front left hoof and enveloped Derpy, instantly stopping her fall.

"How..?" she began as Xylo lifted her up into the ship using the tractor beam.

"I used a tractor beam. It creates a dent in the space around you, which keeps you in place, then if I move the dent, you move too. I will show you how to do this too." he finished as he set Derpy down in a chair next to the command chair. Then he entered the ship, closed and locked the hatch, and say down in the chair at the front of the vehicle known as a command chair.

"So which way to Ponyville Derpy?" Xylo asked turning his head toward her.

"That way." She replied pointing straight ahead.

"Right." Xylo said as he pushed several buttons. Suddenly, the MTU began to walk forward, whiring with every step, and every time a foot hit the ground, a quiet "Boom!" echoed across the land.

"Why exactly did your people come here.?" Derpy asked as the MTU began to scale a hill.

"12 years ago," Xylo began, "My people, the Asimadrons, were building a ship that was supposed to be the faster then our other ships, instead, the engine overloaded and expelled the excess energy into space, which formed a Portal. The Portal led to this planet, which we call Equestron. Curious, my people sent a probe through, to scout out the planet to see if you were hostile, which you obviously aren't." Derpy nodded, listening intently. "The probe found one of you that was lost, like we always do. Then, the probe took me back to my planet to be Ascended. But the engine keeping the Portal open exploded from over-exertion. But no one was killed." Xylo paused, inspecting a flashing panel, showing a structure nearby. After pushing a few buttons of the control panel, he continued. "Luckily, the Asimadrons didn't give up. They built the SolarSphere to recreate the Portal so I could come here and be with you." Xylo blushed realizing what he had just said. Derpy giggled. "I-I mean come here to-to show everyone, um..." he stopped. Not wanting to say something stupid.

Fluttershy was the first to notice the MTU. Mainly because her cottage was very close to Xylo's impact zone. She heard the roaring from the ship entering the atmosphere, and the noise from the MTU approaching, and panicked... Why am I not surprised? Fluttershy is kindly described as a "gentle soul", she also is highly experienced with any and all animals, the normal ones at least. You could say her cottage is an apartment for animals. Her income comes from the chickens she keeps in her backyard. Chickens, surprisingly, lay eggs! I never knew that. So anyway, she panicked and is now hiding in her bedroom. Note: This is not the first time she's used that as a refuge. The MTU stopped as it reached visual range of Fluttershy's cottage. Xylo blinked. He never guessed that that so many differing creatures could possibly coexist in one structure of that size.

"Derpy? Is that a house, or a animal adoption center?" he asked turning to her. Derpy let out a tiny giggle before replying.

"No silly, Fluttershy lives there." Derpy said gesturing at the cottage. "She loves animals. Every animal there lives there." Xylo nodded slowly. "Fluttershy? Is that her real name? Or a nickname?" Xylo asked carefully.

"Its her real name." Derpy replied.

"If I had to describe a name like that, I would say it's..." he rubbed his chin for a second, trying to think of something that wouldn't sound rude.

"...conspicuous." he finished, glancing at the cottage. The mech stopped beside the cottage and it somehow bent down, to allow ease of access. Xylo knew Derpy hadn't yet mastered her jetpack ability yet, so he thought it would be smarter to have the ship bend down instead of risking Derpy careening through Fluttershy's cottage.

"I guess a lot of the ponies' names are rather... conspicuous," Derpy said, scratching the back of head. "like mine."

"I wouldn't say your name is conspicuous." Xylo quickly said, standing and turning to Derpy.

"No you wouldn't because you're very considerate." she replied, smiling at him. Xylo nodded and approached the exit hatch, opening it with his tractor beam emitter. Derpy turned and followed him out of the MTU.

"You seem to be taking all of this very well." Xylo said as he closed the hatch after Derpy had exited the MTU.

"It just seems commonplace to have all this, stuff, around me, almost like..." Derpy mentally searched for the right description.

"I've been around it all my life." Xylo nodded as he turned towards the cottage. "That's expected to happen. The Assimilation Pack uploads data of all our tech into your brain, however your brain structure cannot handle all that information at once, so as soon as you see a piece of tech, it releases the data, so as not to overload your brain." he finished. By now they had reached the front door of Fluttershy's cottage. Xylo almost walked right into the door.

"Why is... Oh whoops." he said blushing lightly as he knocked slowly.

"What?" Derpy asked.

"Nothing," Xylo said turning his head to answer her. "I'm just, not used to manuel doors. All the doors at my home automatically open when you approach them." Derpy's eyebrows raised.

"Really? That would be helpful." Xylo nodded and turned back to the door. Several minutes passed. Xylo just stood there mumbling about all the reasons why someone should build a automatic door. But it was soon interrupted by a loud squawk from behind the house. Xylo didn't seem to react beyond nodding once or twice. Derpy on the other had knew what a chicken sounded like.

"What the..." she said to herself as she began to head towards the backyard of the cottage. Xylo noticed this and asked, rather puzzled,

"Where are you going?" Derpy replied to this, saying, "I heard a chicken, it sounds like its being attacked or something." Several more squawks were heard. Derpy rounded the corner and gasped. The MTU was firing the same spiders that had pinned her down when she first met Xylo. The spiders latched onto the chickens and began to expand like Derpy's Assimilation Pack did, but on a much smaller scale. Some chickens had finished being Ascended and were attempting to calm the remaining un-touched chickens down. "It's not going to hurt you at all.", "The worst is over.", and, "No! It didn't hurt! I just told you that!" could be heard from the Ascended chickens who were, as previously mentioned, calming the unscathed chickens. Surprisingly, to Derpy that is, she didn't feel as... worried? As she thought she would.

"Must be part of this, Ascension, thing." she thought as she watched the last chicken got hit by the MTU's spider-thing cannons. Xylo had followed her and was now sitting beside her watching the last chicken suddenly jump up, completely Ascended. The other chickens cheered and one noticed Xylo. The chicken waved to him and called out, "Sir? Could we borrow your MTU for a bit? We'll need it to get to the Core!" Xylo nodded, then smiled.

"Of course! But just remember to return it!" he called back. The chicken who had spoken got the attention of the other chickens and instructed them to enter the MTU quickly while he, "gives our caretaker our sincere thanks." Then he presently rockets up to the top-floor window, and knocks on it. After a couple seconds, he peers in. Xylo cocks his head and asks quietly, "Why doesn't, Fluttershy, answer?" he had to pause to remember Fluttershy's name, due to it being... Conspicuous. The chicken-drone stops peering and jumps down. Saying something about, "I would have guessed. Poor Fluttershy." he said as it hopped inside the MTU. Which jumped straight up, before reaching its apex, the "legs" returned to wings, the engines rotated back and it flew up towards the Portal. Xylo then noticed that Derpy had disappeared. But then he heard a door open, Derpy say: "Thank goodness you're alright!" Then a scream.

...

Three guesses who. (Hint: Derpy is covered in black metal.)

—

This would be a good place to pause, refill your lemonade, grab a sandvich, and whatever else.

—

Meanwhile... (That means that this is happening alongside what you've already read.)

Twilight was reading books.

...

There's not much more to say. Spike on the other hand, was asleep, dreaming of *blank*. (Take a guess. Correct answer: Rarity. Duh.) Today, Twilight was researching a topic that had recently come up, according to an old record book, there was one Unicorn that drove himself mad from drinking posined water several years ago. According to the book, the Unicorn, driven mad, used his magic as a weapon, not an indirect weapon, like dropping anvils on people's heads, or as a "beam of virtue" but focusing the magic into an incredibly dense beam, that was devestating at close to long range. The Unicorn ended up killing himself in an explosion caused by a massive overdose of magical power. Twilight figured that this could be used if Discord ever reappeared. Which was doubtful. (NOT FORESHADOWING!) All records regarding the specifics of the spell were banned, but the vague record was not. Twilight knew how dangerous the spell was because, I mean come on! The spell created a 2 mile deep crater in the middle of nowhere! It's obviously dangerous! Spike was not doing anything dangerous, unless you count dreaming dangerous. Which I don't. Who would count dreaming dangerous? Unless you're in a coma, then its dangerous because if don't stop you could die. I'm getting off-topic, sorry. Twilight's studies were interrupted by a fierce knocking, which jerked Spike awake. "It wasn't me officer!" Spike yelled as he sat up. Twilight put her book down and trotted to the door and opened it

"What's wrong?" she asked, already assuming that if somepony was knocking on her door that hard, their must be something wrong. Turns out there was 2 ponies at her door. The first was Apple Jack, and the second was Pinkie Pie, who didn't look at all like her normal cheery demeanor, in fact they both looked downright scared out of their wits!

"Twilight! Come look at this!" Apple Jack said shakily, pointing at something in the sky behind her house. Twilight raised an eyebrow, but stepped out and looked at the sky, right in the middle was the Portal, through which, she could see the Power Core and the Assimadrons' homeworld. Twilight's eyes widened in shock.

"Do you know what is?" Asked Pinkie Pie. Twilight turned to them and asked, "What makes you think that I know what it is?" Apple Jack looked to Pinkie before replying.

"We thought so because you read so many books and maybe you might have read about it." Twilight questioned the logic of that statement inwardly. Now I bet you're itching to find out what happened with Fluttershy and all of that, what happened was that she fainted. I'm honestly not surprised. Derpy felt bad about it, and Xylo used a stimulant to wake her up. They tried to explain the situation, but she just fainted again. So Xylo used his tractor beam to place her in her bed. Then they continued on the way to Ponyvile, but as you know, the Ascended chickens had to use Xylo's MTU to fly to the Assimadrons' homeworld, which has remained unnamed, but fear not! I will disclose its name now: Vratran II. …yes, that's the planet's name. However, the Assimadrons call it "Core" because it is the Core of their entire collective intelligence. Anyway, Derpy and Xylo had to fly there using their jetpacks, they passed overhead and headed to the center of the deceptively large town.

"How long did it take to build this town? Xylo asked, landing in front of the town hall.

"Uhhh... I actually don't know." Derpy replied, landing beside Xylo. Xylo nodded and looked around at the ponies who had frozen in their tracks, gaping at him and Derpy. Derpy spotted the Cakes among them and instantly felt embarrassed. Suddenly, some kind of visor rose up and obscuring her face, through it, she could see all kinds of strange things, such as: A clock, personal vital signs, air density, altitude, longitude and latitude, etc..? Xylo on the other hand, waved at one pony who was shakily pointing at him, then looked up at the Portal to Vraten II expectantly. Meanwhile, Twilight, Pinkie, and Apple Jack had seen Derpy and Xylo fly overhead, and raced after them, mainly because they wanted answers, if a massive alien Portal opened above your hometown, I bet you would want to know why they were there. Anyway, the Ascended Chickens had reached Vraten II and set the MTU, or Scout Corvette, as it's called when in space, on an automated course to Xylo. Xylo saw the Starship approaching and stepped back to allow the ship room to land. Which it did, unfortunately, the wing slammed onto Xylo's head. Strangely, he didn't seem to notice, besides spinning around, and rubbing his head. (?) Xylo and everyone else in the vicinity weren't the only ones to notice the ship, nope. Rainbow Dash saw as well. Her reaction was surprise, opposed to panic. She followed the ship as it landed in the square.

"What the heck is going on?" She thought to herself. Then she spotted Twilight, Pinkie, and Apple Jack, who had just made it to the square and were about to approach Xylo. Twilight cautiously approached him, but saw that the other one (Derpy) was closer and approached it instead. (Holy crap! Twilight has serious guts!)

"Uhh, hi! Why did you come hear?" she asked, which caused Derpy to jump and snap around to face Twilight. This also caused Twilight to jump. For a second neither did anything except stare at one another. After several seconds, Twilight shook her head and said, rather cautiously, "Why are you here?" Derpy was afraid to reply, because her "distinctive" voice might give her away.

"Yeah, just what are you doing here?" Derpy jumped and spun around. Rainbow dash was floating behind her, her front hooves folded.

"Uhhhh..." Derpy said, glancing between Rainbow Dash and Twilight. Fortunately, Xylo came to her rescue.

"You'll see Rainbow and Twilight. You'll see." Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow.

"It's Rainbow Dash, if you don't mind." she said floating a bit higher off the ground. Xylo turned to her, smiled, and said,

"Of course." then he turned back to his ship, which he was having trouble getting open.

"Open you dumb door." he muttered. But it swung open with such force that he was launched through the air like a catapult's ammunition. He activated his jetpack just before clearing 10 meters away from the ship. He rocketed back, landing in front of the now open door. He clambered inside, heading to the cargo room again. This time, he was looking for the Ascension Zone Command Card. (AZCC.) It looked like the MTUCC, except purple. He found it under half of a nuclear refrigerator (...The fric am I saying?) near the back. Then he inserted it into the CCTD. Outside the ship, Derpy was still standing in between Twilight and Rainbow Dash, when the corvette began to shake violently. Everyone except Derpy, Rainbow Dash, and Twilight backed away from the ship, which suddenly shone brilliantly. Derpy stepped slightly closer, she could just see through the light, it seemed . The light began to dissipate, revealing a small building, with a small podium by the front door. The building itself was a cube. The front door was an automatic double door. On the left side was some kind of small pad. To Derpy, an image of a teleport pad appeared in her head. But everyone else didn't have that info. Xylo was standing, yes, I said standing, bipedal no less, at the podium. He waved to Derpy to come join him. Derpy waved back and walked over to him, and stood beside the podium. Xylo looked up at the wormhole absentmindedly. He scratched his left ear, looking around. His eyes drifted up to a castle hanging off of a cliff in the distance. (Caterlot.) and raised an eyebrow. He closed his flesh eye, allowing his mechanical eye full control of his view, but before he could take a closer look. Twilight and Rainbow Dash stepped up. Xylo reopened his flesh eye and looked at them.

"Uh, what is that for? What is your purpose here?" Twilight asked glancing at the building. (AZ.) "Oh that." Xylo said, looking at the AZ as well.

"Imagine you were an artist. Say you went in there," Xylo pointed at the AZ. "when you came out, you would be a better artist. Not in the sense that you would make masterpieces every time, but you wouldn't need a palette. Instead, you would have a..." Xylo searched for the right word. "It's hard to explain." he finished, resting his head on his front hooves.

"Oh yeah? What if you were a good flyer?" Rainbow Dash asked, still hovering.

"You would be outfitted with scramjets, for maximum speed potential."

"What about a good farmer?" asked Apple Jack, who had just stepped forward. "Automatic hydration mechanisms, alongside a whole new variety of seeds that apparently don't exist on this planet." Xylo said, glancing at her.

"Good partier?" Asked Pinkie, who had appeared next to him from seemingly thin air. "I'm not sure that's a word..." Xylo said slowly.

"Oh." Pinkie said, and sunk into a deep thinking period. Xylo blinked.

"You certainly have a diverse populace." he whispered to Derpy. Twilight was thinking.

"An alien that looks like us shows up saying that he can improve on our traits. It seems almost too good to be true." she thought.

"What if, you were a good reader?" she asked. Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. Xylo looked at Twilight before replying. "I don't know about that, but we have a database about everything that ever happened to my people. Makes for a good read. If you want to take the time to actually read through it." Xylo pointed at the AZ. "As to why I'm here." he pointed at the AZ again. "That's why." Twilight turned to AZ, and begun to slowly walk towards it. Everyone's eyes were on her. When she reached the front, the automatic door slid open. Inside was just blackness. Gathering her courage, she stepped inside. The door closed behind her... Then a voice rang in her ears.

"Welcome, prepare yourself. There's no turning back. Do you wish to proceed?" Twilight was sweating now. She was disoriented, was she standing on her head or her hooves? Was the exit in front of her or behind her?

"Y-Yes." she stuttered.

"Excellent. Close your eyes if you haven't already." Twilight obeyed.

"Now, hold still..." Twilight heard a high pitched whirring sound right by her ear... Then...

Nothing...


	4. The Book of Flayr Preview!

_SURPRISE! What you are about to read is a Sneak Peak for The Book of Flayr, a Sci-fi Romance (Its a thing!) set in the far, far, FAR future. So, without further ado, the Prologue!_

_**Prologue.**_

_**The Earth has Burned.**_

World War III was the catalyst, the G-Bomb was the beacon, and the destruction and death was the message. No. Not a message. A plea.

_**The Earth has Burned.**_

No one knows what would have happened if World War III never happened. Millions could have lived and never died, yes. But, oh the blessings that followed!

_**The Earth has Burned.**_

A common query among you is, "Why wait until the third war? Why not come when the first one began? Or the second?"

_**The Earth has Burned.**_

I would say, "When you used the Gravity Bomb, it set off an alarm on our Homeworld at the exact moment our new long-range sensor activated."

_**The Earth has Burned.**_

But the truth is, neither of us was ready for the other, but we were destined to meet, to learn, and to grow alongside each other.

_**The Earth has Burned.**_

The question is, can you bring yourselves to trust us completly...

_**The Earth has Burned...**_

...or can you not?

**_...AND THE EARTH WILL BURN AGAIN!_**


	5. Chapter 3 The Ascension of Ponyville

Chapter 3; The Ascension of Ponyvile.

When you read that the Portal of Opportunity, as the Assimadrons call it, which I noted in the Prologue, reopened, I'll bet a spakker and two fish heads (?) that you thought to yourself: "I wonder what Celestia and Luna have to say about this." ... Ok, here's your spakker and your fish heads. Well, Luna was snoozing at that moment and really didn't see much of anything except the back of her eyelids. Celestia on the other hand, was... Uh... Er... How should I say this... Celestia was... Frightened..? (Hard to imagine, I know.) Which is incredibly strange mainly because Twilight and the others were all "Meh" about it. Also because she's hoooo-I-mean-powerful (...) and really shouldn't be scared in the least. Maybe she's met these creatures before in the past... Maybe. (NOT FORESHADOWING! *Trollface*) Moving on from that topic, ahem. Celestia just watches the whole debacle (?) unfold from her balcony-thing, using her telescope-like eyesight. When she saw the Assimadrons building appear, her eyes widened in shock, quickly, a piece of paper and a quill appeared in front of her, and she begins to write;

"Twilight Sparkle,

I am warning now, these creatures that have appeared are dangerous, and should be avoided at all costs. I wish I could give you more information, but I've wasted enough time with this letter already. I'll reply soon.

Celestia."

(Holy Fr'ij! She must have been in such a hurry, she left out the "Dear" at the beginning and the "Princess" bit at the bottom!) One quick, simple, istsy-bitsy, wee, question I want to ask. How, does Celestia send the letters? In the intro, we see the letter materialize in front of her, but what about the letters she sends? This is my-not-so plausible-hypothesis: She writes the letter, converts it into energy, (E=mc2 YA' SODS!) calculates the position of Spike, sends the letter's energy to Spike with a materialization timer, also with a message to the brain to make him burp, the result is him appearing to burp the letter out and materialize it at the same time. (Logic. It ruins everything.) Anyway, however she does it, the letter was sent. If you could remember, Spike fainted shortly after coming outside the library. Little hint, he's still there. The letter materialized on top of his head, and there it sat. Unread.

Xylo counted down silently in his head. "19, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7..." a high-pitched whine filled the air. "I guess my count was off." he thought as he watched the center of the teleport pad began to glow dark green brightly. A unicorn silhouette formed in the middle of the light, which began to get dimmer and dimmer. When the light was gone, Twilight stood in the middle. Well technicly that's not true, Twilight plus some, would be more specific. Twilight's purplely coat could still be seen in some places, mainly her left side, it seemed like it forgot to do half of the job! Most of the standard equipment was heaped on the right side of her body. Her right eye was replaced with an eye-plate, a piece of electronics that updates sight with vital signs, shield strength, ammo, should someone have any of these. In Derpy's case, it was implanted inside her eye, a bit messer, but it looks better in the end. The only thing that was Assimadron tech on the left side were metal straps, securing the tech in place, although its part of her body now, it can't come off, the micro-dish, a tiny radio dish, and a concealed Rapid Cannon. Her SP (Speacilized.) Box contained a class 24-7 connection to the Assimadron mainframe. A vocabulary processer, uses a computer to create words. The crowd was silent for several seconds, and even Rainbow Dash was speechless. All eyes were on Twilight, who suddenly began to look around, as if she was stunned to find out she was actually standing there. When she turned to look at Pinkie, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash, realization speard across her face. "Pinkie? Applejack? Rainbow Dash?" She slowly approached them. Xylo raised an eyebrow. "Memory loss is very uncommon, still, it seems like that could be the problem." Derpy on the other hand was to shocked to say anything. "How do you feel?" Xylo asked Twilight. Twilight's head instantly turned to him and she replied. "I feel... Different, slightly colder, less worried about things, more... Collected." "The brain is trying to cope with the excess energy, causing certain brain functions to lag. Perfect. Nothing wrong there." Xylo thought, nodding. He looked up at the crowd and asked. "Who's next?" For at least a full minute, no one moved. Then Pinkie popped up out of thin air beside Xylo and asked, "Could you explain one thing to me?" Unfortunately, her question was never answered, for right then, Xylo jumped, slipped, catching Pinke's legs, causing her to fall on top of him. The added weight must have triggered a circut of something because Xylo's jetpack activated for a spilt second, shooting both of them toward the AZ's front door. Xylo flew off in one direction, Pinkie flew inside the AZ, the door shutting behind her. Pinkie sat up, disoriented. Then the voice began to talk. "Welcome, prepare yourself. There's no turning back. Do you wish to begin?" "No! Let me out!" Pinkie cried, running around, trying to find an exit. "Please!" she yelled again, tears falling. "Excellent. now hold still..." Pinkie obeyed, then she heard a whirring to right. "That must be the door!" she thought, and ran towards it. The second she turned and ran however, a "ZZZZZZZRRT" was heard, then all went quiet. Even the beating of Pinkie's heart was temporarily stopped...

Xylo picked himself up and put an ear close to the door. Derpy saw him flinch, then he sighed, and walked back to the podium. "Is she going to be okay?" Applejack asked, eye's wide. "Of course." He replied. "She be out in about a minute." "Will she look like, Twilight?" She asked glancing at Twilight. "Oi!" Xylo exclaimed, turning his head toward her. "Don't knock it untill you try it." he said "She won't look exactly like Twilight, but there will be similarities." The second after he said this, the teleport pad began to glow, and there was Pinkie. Xylo recognized a personal teleport hang off the side of her neck. Night vision googles hung over her eyes. Xylo noticed a metal line separating the sides of her head. "Oh dear. I'm guessing she didn't hold still" he thought. There was no sign of an eye pad. But there were two tanks of gas on either side. There was also miniature Rhoda Blackhole Mark 3.4 at the base of her neck. But what stood out the most was the fact that the metal was not black, but dark pink! Yes, dark pink! Xylo was more that a little surprised, in fact, he blinked a few times just to make sure he wasn't seeing things. Pinkie was more than a little surprised herself. "What just happened?" she asked, teleporting next to Twilight. "You were just Ascended. How do you feel?" Xylo asked, resting his head on the podium's edge. "Hard to say, I guess you could say I feel like I could be everywhere at once." Xylo didn't respond. Gears were turning in his head. No really. Gears were actually turning in his head. "She must have a direct mental link to the teleport. That shouldn't pose a problem." Xylo said to himself, standing upright. "So that's three now." "Three?" Rainbow Dash asked raising an eyebrow. "There's only Pinkie and Twilight. That's two." Xylo looked at Derpy, and gave a small nod. Derpy nodded back. She felt braver when she was with Xylo. "Well?" Rainbow Dash pestered, hovering closer, giving him an accusatory look. "That's because There was one other of your race that was Ascended first. He looked at Derpy, and smiled reassuringly. Derpy nodded back, and stepped forward. Rainbow Dash turned to her. "Grey coat, who do I... Wait..." realization swept across her face at the exact same time that Derpy lowered the visor, showing her face. "DERPY!?" Almost everyone gasped. The only ones who didn't were Xylo, Twilight, and Pinkie. Rainbow Dash's jaw dropped faster than the prices at a flea market! (LOL!.. What's a flea market?) "What? How?" Rainbow Dash stuttered. "I was sitting next to where Xylo's ship crash landed, so I was the first." She said, loud enough for everyone to hear. She stood there for a second. Looking down. "If Derpy can do it, I'm sure I can too." Derpy looked up just in time to see Rainbow Dash disappear inside the AZ. She wasn't the only one who was surprised, everyone, even Xylo. 36 seconds later, an Ascended Raindow Dash appeared on the teleport pad. Xylo's jaw dropped. There was at least 5 Scramjets! There was also a sleek, streamlined helmet resting beside her, which she put on. The metal covered every square inch of her body, except for her head, as usual. Her cutie mark was visible through a small glass porthole on either side. She put the helmet on, Looked around, then jumped up into the air, at her apex, the Scramjets fired, she achieved 0 to mach 5 in half a millisecond. Off she went, zipping around the town at super-sonic speeds. Then the AZ began to hum. "Who stepped inside?" Xylo asked quietly, looking around. Derpy instantly noticed a clear absence of orange and a cowpony hat. (Correct answer: Applejack.) After another 30 or so seconds, a fully Ascended Applejack appeared on the pad. (I just keep going don't I? Don't worry, after this, and a brief cut to Spike, this chapter will be over.) Applejack had dome-like pieces attached to the bottom of her hooves, these devices are know as PSHaMD, Planting, Seeding, Harvesting, and Moisturizing Device. Like the name entails, it plants, seed, harvests, and moistens. That sounded like a bad business salesman's motto-thing. It also does trees. Her hat was still there, except it had a metal brim. Besides those, there were two robotic pinchers, currently off, alongside a grapple cannon, a super-powered version of a grappling gun, but instead of a hook, it creates a tiny dent in space, increasing its already wide range of uses. A squarish eye-plate, was situated over her left eye, connected by wires to a point just below her left ear. Besides all this, there was plenty of blinking lights and such. She also looked surprised to be there, which was perfectly okay, in fact, it was expected. Apple Jack walked back to the others, walking not hindered by the PSHaMD at all. "How do you feel?" Xylo asked, fiddling with a screw. "I feel..." Apple Jack began, like everybody else. (Oh I'M sorry, I meant everyPONY! Geez...) But unlike the rest, she couldn't find the right words, besides: "Thank you." Elsewhere, Spike had just come to, and felt rather hungry. "I wonder what's... Wait what's this?" He asked himself examining the letter. "A letter? Is it for me?" He asked himself looking about. Then he made the awful mistake of looking up, "Whaaaa..." Spike, being rather small, was rather afraid of anything bigger than him that had a mind of its own. And plenty of massive ships were flying about in that Portal, in fact, a rather large amount... Spike did it faint this time, instead he ran back inside, dropping the letter on the way in. It was whisked away by a breeze, through the air, and right through Rarity's window. But she was still out cold at her doorstep. (Oops.) Meanwhile, at the Core, the 3 LORDs (Logical Omnipotent Robotic Designators.) watched through Xylo's eyes as all of this unfolded, but when they came to the part where Xylo had zoomed in on Canterlot, their nonexistent hearts skipped a metaphorical beat. "Look who's there, Vortexcia herself." Said the first. "In the flesh." The second added. "Literally. In the flesh." The third observed, increasing the resolution to get a better look. "She isn't as pretty as she was before." The second said, slouching non-physically. "Well, you know what the mortals say, 'You can't have your cake and eat it too.'" (I always thought Valve came up with that, it fits Portal really well!) "I guess you're right." The second one agreed, but the first one ignored them. Instead, he said, "Yes, but who is the white one on the balcony? And why is Vortexcia asleep?" (DUN, DUN, DUUUHHH!) Luna's an Assimadron! Oh no! Wait, is that even a bad thing?

...

I'm not going to answer that.

Yet.

There. The chapter's finished. I'm hoping that you're still awake, because things are about to get perilous.

WARNING! NEXT CHAPTER CONTAINS A TIME JUMP!


	6. Chapter 4 Confronting Vortexcia

Chapter 5; Curing Celestia's Mavrosmetallophobia, and a Happy Future.

7 Light-Years from The Core, a Gearon (Another race of aliens, except silicon based.) scout ship observed the Assimadrons reopen Opportunity, send the ship through, and come back, then leave again.

"What could those huffel puffels (?) be up too now?" One Gearon said in the usual guttural tone.

"Oblivion was much better at dealing with these eco-brains." Said another. The rest agreed to that. Meanwhile, on Equestron, Ponyville was commissioned to be Phoenixed, a process in which a special bomb, called a Phoenix Bomb, is detonated. When a Phoenix bomb is detonated, it creates a spacial distortion that "reprograms" atoms. PBs are sometimes used for the production of small Assimadron starships. PBs also have a secondary use, one that hopefully will never be used. The PB in use now is programmed to Ascend the buildings, turn the wood into metal, which is called Ascendium, and add a couple of other buildings, like a landing platform for ships. A PB has a very unique shape, instead of the usual shape, the bomb is a perfect 5 ft cube. (?) This makes them easily stackable and stored. These bombs were not designed by the Assimadrons, but instead were found in the ruins of an old starship, billions of years old. The original 13 were used to make more, nowadays, they have stacks and stacks of these things, but 12 of the first 13 are on display, the last one was accidentally set off when someone dropped it by mistake. Everything within 50 miles with the color orange on it turned into water. (Lol. What?) I'm going to let you in on a little secret... A Phoenix Bomb works by destroying something, then using the energy from the explosion to "reprogram" the nearby atoms. The more it destroys, the more it can do. The second use of the PB has actually been used an insane amount of times, but no one can remember it was set off, because they were destroyed, and then reprogrammed somewhere else, like a time machine that blows everything up. Leaving the technobabble behind, let us return to Ponyvile (Is it one "l" or two "l"'s!?) and our protagonists. Xylo was overseeing the preparation of the PB with Derpy, who, after a brief study up on the Phoenix Bomb thanks to the data files that pop up when she looks at it, was able to help with the preparations with a very low percentage of doing something wrong.

"Derpy?" Xylo called out from the side of the bomb.

"Yeah?" Derpy called back, peering down from the top of it, where she had been disconnecting wires from the PB to an Assimadron ship that had delivered it, currently hovering above them, making quite a bit of noise.

"Are you sure all the wires are disconnected?" Xylo asked, using their comm system this time.

"Hold on." Derpy replied, looking about to see if all the wires were disconnected, and she saw one wire connected to a corner behind her.

"Oh, there's one more." She reached out and detached the wire by cutting it.

"That's all of them." Derpy said, rather proud that she had prepped a bomb without screwing up, how ironic, the first task she completed without making a mess was preparing a bomb for detonation!

"Good work Derpy." Xylo congratulated as she floated down from the top of the Phoenix Bomb.

"Thanks Xylo." Derpy replied, blushing slightly. Xylo didn't notice, or if he did, didn't react. He was adjusting the bomb's timer, it was still a bomb, and it would hurt a bit if it blew up in their face. The rest of the Ponies has evacuated to a safe distance where they could watch in safety. Derpy took a couple steps back and looked the bomb over, making a few observations.

"It doesn't look like any Assimadron machine I've seen, this is just a perfect cube, Assimadrons tend to use flowing shapes in the design of their... Things." Derpy observed, hovering over it. She then landed on the top, and looked around, imagining what the buildings would look like when they had been Ascended. Her eyes drifted over to the wall of a nearby building, and...

"Wait, what is that?" She thought, peering at some kind of, distortion. Looking harder, she could see something inside, what is it? Then the distortion "opened", and what Derpy saw almost made her weep tears of joy... Meanwhile, in Canterlot, an Assimadron was sneaking it's way into the throne room. It's task was simple, find the throne room, first of all, assemble a Gaseous Medicine Releaser, or GMR, and activate it once it had escaped, while staying undetected the entire time. Thank fr'ij it had a Personal Invisibility Shield, or PIS, to aid in this factor. But this Assimadron was having little luck, and ended up stumbling into the dungeon. Deciding it might as well make the best of it and record whatever was down here, it activated the recorder, and the Assimadron began to soundlessly explore the dungeon. The dungeon looked rather unused, but well kept, and the ground was void of dirt. The Assimadron exploring was an expert in stealth, having once been a stealth trooper on its homeworld long ago. This Assimadron is a what's known as a Vask, a fish-like race that had adapted to life on land swimmingly, (*groan*) and had been very happy to join the Assimadrons when they came. This one here is a male of his race, and his name was once Victor, but had changed his name to N1-NJA, but I'm going to call him Victor, because I can. (_**U MAD?**_) Victor thought the dungeon looked rather homely, being well-lit, cozy, and warm.

"Wonder why they don't just convert this place into a living area?" He thought as he continued his trek through the homely dungeon. When he came to a fork in the road, Victor chose to go left, just because, and not too long after that, he came to another fork in the road, one path leading into a bright hallway of more cozy, unused cells, but the left path went spiraling downward into darkness, and it seemed as if it was chiseled out recently, as the stone floor of the dungeon did not follow the left path. Feeling adventurous, Victor raced down the left path, night vision on for both him and the camera on his eye-plate. Back in Ponyvile, Xylo had set the bomb to go off in about 15 minutes.

"All finished Derpy. Derpy?" Xylo looked around, where had Derpy gone?

"Derpy?" He repeated, looking about.

"Up here..." Derpy said shakily and quietly.

"What's wrong?" Xylo asked, flying to the top of the PB.

"Can you see that?" Derpy asked, staring at the wall of a nearby building.

"See what?" Xylo asked, seeing nothing. He wasn't worried about the bomb going off while they were near it, they would just be "rebuilt" but Xylo had been blown up by a PB several times before, and it was most uncomfortable.

"That..." Derpy said, pointing at the wall again, a barely noticeable tear falling.

"I don't see anything." Xylo said, not noticing the tear. Derpy pulled up a live feed of her vision and transmitted it to Xylo.

"Look..." She said, about to cry.

"What could... Oh." Xylo saw a spatial distortion, showing a strange future, but Derpy was only seeing what was inside.

"Oh my." Xylo muttered in utter shock. Derpy was seeing a little filly, one with features amazingly similar to Derpy's, except a very dull purple coat, almost lavender, playing with a young... Chainling? Xylo gasped.

"The spatial distortion must be showing Derpy her future, but how is that possibly!? The chances of a spatial distortion appearing here and showing Derpy's future with her being here at the same time, are insane!" Derpy almost collapsed into tears of joy. She looked so happy, was she really going to be a mother? Her lifelong dream was to have a little filly of her own. How does Derpy know that filly is her's you ask? Experiments show that a mother can tell who their child is just by hearing them breathe! (**Holy fr'ij!**) And Derpy's got a full screen view, plus her eyes are identical to the way Derpy's point in two different directions at once. So there. Then, to both Derpy's and Xylo's surprise, Derpy HERSELF walked into view, fully Ascended, and said something inaudible to the filly, who made a sad face, and waved goodbye to the Chainling, who flashed a big fangy smile. Derpy's child suddenly stopped and looked, straight at them! Xylo gaped, and muttered some incoherent technobabble to himself. But Derpy smiled and slowly waved, more tears falling. The filly waved slowly back, then the spatial distortion closed, cutting them off. Derpy kept smiling and waving, as if she could still see her. Xylo shook his head a couple times.

"The odds..." Meanwhile, back in the dungeons of Centerlot. Victor had been walking down this path for such a long time now, he decided to turn around, but then again, maybe he was right there, maybe whatever was down here was just around the bend.

"I'll go just a little further." He thought, and sure enough, round the bend, there was a dead end.

"Well, at least I found the end." He thought, sighing. But there was a stone tablet embedded into the wall, with writing on it! It said:

_You've found the end,_

_Hip hip hoorAy,_

_But the pAth continues through._

_The pAssword you must sAy,_

_To open the path Anew._

_The queen you sAved,_

_What's her nAme?_

"Huh?" Victor blinked. "Queen you saved..." He thought to himself, utterly stumped, and he's a friccin' super-computer! (They all are. How else would the retain all that information about their empire? Sticky notes?)

"Why are all the 'A's capitalized as well?" Victor sat down and thought.

"Wait... A, could mean Assimadrons! And Vortexcia is technically a queen. And she's here! That must be it! But I'm a fish! I can't speak." Victor then realized he had a translator that turned his burbles into words.

"Vortexcia." He burbled, and the translator said: "Vortexcia." As soon as that word escaped the tiny translator's speakers, part of the wall to Victor's right slid back, and to the side, to reveal a hexagonal metal hallway leading into a larger cavern. Victor stealthily made his way into the larger cavern, and almost choked on his own water! It was massive! It seemed to go on and on, but what was really weird was the walls, ceiling, and floor were all made entirely out of a highly reflective gemstone of some kind, but large sections of these crystals have been removed and honeycomb-like edifices take their place. Some have stasis cells in them, with sleeping Chainlings inside, while other honeycombs have large glass tanks full of, gold gas.

"That is a lot of Chainlings." Victor thought, looking around at the swarms of these crosses between insectoids and horses, or ponies, or, whatever... **GAAH! SO CONFUSING!** Sorry, shall we continue?

...

Those in favor blink.

...

It passes unanimously, we'll continue. Ahem, anyway, looking around at the swarms of Chainlings flying about, some taking gold gas containers out of those honeycomb cells, others, putting them in. In the midst of all this hustle and bustle, Victor saw only one who was doing nothing, and that was Vortexcia. Wait what!? Vortexcia was down here? He could have sworn she was up in the throne room... Vortexcia was telling a story to a small crowd of younger Chainlings, upon closer inspection, thanks to his vision zooming-in ability, he saw that her lower stomach was bulging scarily.

"That looks very painful. I wonder if she knows I'm here." Almost in response, Vortexcia looked straight at him, but didn't react.

"I'm glad I have my PIS on, I have a feeling I shouldn't be here." And with that, Victor left, once more resuming his mission to heal Celestia, and on his way out, he thought,

"I can't believe she's that far along in her pregnancy, and still able to look after thousands of her children, and how does she remember all their names?" Victor decided to just not think about it. Vortexcia had seen him, however, inferred vision FTW!

"You were in a hurry." She thought as Victor ran out and disappeared.

"What happened next mommy?" One of the young Chainlings asked, visibly excited.

"Oh yess, the— AH..." Vortexcia doubled over. Collapsing onto her side.

"Mommy..?" One asked, no longer excited. Vortexcia clawed at the ground, leaving long scratches on the crystals.

"Ss-ss-ssorry..." She strained to say, refusing to let herself scare her little ones.

"...little oness..." She forced a smile.

"...mommy'ss... Not feeling too well, sshe needss a break..."

"Are you OK mommy?" One asked, rather frightened.

"...Per-per-perfectly fine deariess." She said as she attempted to stand.

"Mommy'll be-be right back..." She strained to say as 4 of her older sons flew down and helped her walk into a largish building. The young Chainlings huddled together when the door closed behind mommy, that was scary, mommy just fell over!

"What happened?" One whispered to itself. Another looked up and saw strange white canisters being carried off by their older brothers from the top of the building mommy is in, and placed in blue cells, where they were filled with gold gas. The young Chainling didn't know it, but those canisters contained Chainling eggs. Right now, I'll bet you're saying:

"But I, Darkstar X! What about the end of the last chapter? Didn't Klikker get paralyzed by Celestia!? **WHAT HAPPENED!?**" In answer, I say, Klikker, now paralyzed, could not maintain his invisibility field, and fell over. Right through the window. And onto the ground. Klikker thankfully survived, (?) but the paralyzingly spell Celestia had used prevented him from moving very much. Seeing a certain small alcove of rock, Klikker slowly made his way into the alcove, visibly struggling, but was able to reach his destination because Celestia hadn't assumed that the Chainling was an alien, and had targeted where she thought the nervous system was, thinking he was a Changeling. Once inside the alcove, he clicked a couple times, and a secret door opened, allowing him to escape into the cavern hive. Luna/Vortexcia was closer to the window, and told Celestia that it had disintegrated, which Celestia believed. Ok? Thank you. Victor raced back up the tunnel, through the dungeon, stopped to make sure his PIS was on, then stepped back out into the main palace. "I should have taken the left turn at the balcony." (C wot I did thar?) Victor thought as he backtracked to where he thought he made a mistake, and was surprised to see Celestia, on the balcony!

"Target spotted." He said to himself, scaling the vines on the wall beside the balcony, knowing that using his jetpack would most certainly give him away. Stealthily and silently, he dropped onto the balcony behind Celestia, and began to assemble the GMR. A GMR comes in 3 pieces, one piece is the main housing, the second is the remote controlled releasing mechanism, and finally, the gaseous medicine. The medicine was actually a cloud of microscopic nano-bots designed to infiltrate the brain and permanently neutralize the part of the brain causing her phobia, which were carried aloft by pure oxygen, not air, oxygen. There's a difference. Air has trace amounts of methane, hydrogen, and helium, along with a small amount of a bunch of other chemicals, besides oxygen. So there. Victor glanced behind him to see if there was anyone approaching that might run into him. He did see Vortexica, in her alicorn disguise, but she looked a little sick, and much thinner. She happened to look up, and saw him. Victor made the "Shhh!" sign with his hand and face, to which Vortexcia, or Luna, replied by nodding and winking at him. Victor gave a thumbs up, and then turned back to assembling the GMR he had. He was almost finished, he just had to insert the gas, close the lid, and put it somewhere where it would be inhaled by Celestia when he activated it, but wouldn't be discovered after emptying. Vortexcia jerked her head towards a nearby potted plant, and nodded. Victor returned the nod and placed the GMR behind the plant itself. Then he turned around to leave, and almost walked into Celestia! Victor countered by rolling to the side, but his exit was still blocked by Celestia.

"Those aliens have me worried, sister, something seems off about them." Celestia said, turning to Vortexcia/Luna. Luna smiled and said,

"Oh sis, you worry to much! I still can't believe there are aliens here! So exciting!"

"You seem awfully excited." Celestia raised an eyebrow as she said this.

"Aliens! From another planet! They took their time to do all of this just to be here! It makes me feel that we're special."

"You're right about that." Victor thought, activating his gas filter, deciding that he might as well activate it now. He sent a message to Vortexcia, (She was still Ascended, so she can receive messages like that.)

"I'm going to turn the gas on, hold you breath, and tell your sons that are in here to do the same." Vortexcia confirmed she had received the message by tapping her hoof 3 times. Victor waited a few seconds, then activated the GMR. Celestia coughed a few times, then passed out, while Victor hand a couple of PIS gas-masks to Vortexica to give to her sons, then he rocketed away, back to his ship so he could return to the Core. Just before reaching his ship, a ball of white erupted from the village called Ponyville. Victor stopped in his tracks, and stood at attention, facing the blast. He stayed this way until the dust cleared, and a sparking new Ascended Ponyville appeared.

"It's always nice to see a Phoenix Bomb go off, something, poetic, about it." He burbled to himself as he got back in his ship and flew off. Back in Ponyville, Derpy jolted awake, had she actually been blown up by the Phoenix Bomb? A wrenching sound to her left confirmed it. She, and Xylo, now finished emptying his stomach, had been blown up. And they were still alive?

"How is that even possible?" She thought to herself, utterly mystified.

"I'm surprised you haven't thrown up yet Derpy, that's usually the first thing someone does when they've been Phoenixed." Xylo said, coughing as he stood up and spit to the side.

"Don't-" Derpy began, but the violently vomited onto the ground in front of her.

"-jinx it." She gave Xylo an angry glare, but was unable to hold it and cracked up. Xylo followed shortly, falling over with howls of laughter.

"Derpy, you are perfect." Xylo thought sneaking a glance at Derpy's happy face, and smiled. That future didn't seem so far off after all.


	7. Chapter 5 Curing Celestia

Chapter 5; Curing Celestia's Mavrosmetallophobia, and a Happy Future.

7 Light-Years from The Core, a Gearon (Another race of aliens, except silicon based.) scout ship observed the Assimadrons reopen Opportunity, send the ship through, and come back, then leave again.

"What could those huffel puffels (?) be up too now?" One Gearon said in the usual guttural tone.

"Oblivion was much better at dealing with these eco-brains." Said another. The rest agreed to that. Meanwhile, on Equestron, Ponyville was commissioned to be Phoenixed, a process in which a special bomb, called a Phoenix Bomb, is detonated. When a Phoenix bomb is detonated, it creates a spacial distortion that "reprograms" atoms. PBs are sometimes used for the production of small Assimadron starships. PBs also have a secondary use, one that hopefully will never be used. The PB in use now is programmed to Ascend the buildings, turn the wood into metal, which is called Ascendium, and add a couple of other buildings, like a landing platform for ships. A PB has a very unique shape, instead of the usual shape, the bomb is a perfect 5 ft cube. (?) This makes them easily stackable and stored. These bombs were not designed by the Assimadrons, but instead were found in the ruins of an old starship, billions of years old. The original 13 were used to make more, nowadays, they have stacks and stacks of these things, but 12 of the first 13 are on display, the last one was accidentally set off when someone dropped it by mistake. Everything within 50 miles with the color orange on it turned into water. (Lol. What?) I'm going to let you in on a little secret... A Phoenix Bomb works by destroying something, then using the energy from the explosion to "reprogram" the nearby atoms. The more it destroys, the more it can do. The second use of the PB has actually been used an insane amount of times, but no one can remember it was set off, because they were destroyed, and then reprogrammed somewhere else, like a time machine that blows everything up. Leaving the technobabble behind, let us return to Ponyvile (Is it one "l" or two "l"'s!?) and our protagonists. Xylo was overseeing the preparation of the PB with Derpy, who, after a brief study up on the Phoenix Bomb thanks to the data files that pop up when she looks at it, was able to help with the preparations with a very low percentage of doing something wrong.

"Derpy?" Xylo called out from the side of the bomb.

"Yeah?" Derpy called back, peering down from the top of it, where she had been disconnecting wires from the PB to an Assimadron ship that had delivered it, currently hovering above them, making quite a bit of noise.

"Are you sure all the wires are disconnected?" Xylo asked, using their comm system this time.

"Hold on." Derpy replied, looking about to see if all the wires were disconnected, and she saw one wire connected to a corner behind her.

"Oh, there's one more." She reached out and detached the wire by cutting it.

"That's all of them." Derpy said, rather proud that she had prepped a bomb without screwing up, how ironic, the first task she completed without making a mess was preparing a bomb for detonation!

"Good work Derpy." Xylo congratulated as she floated down from the top of the Phoenix Bomb.

"Thanks Xylo." Derpy replied, blushing slightly. Xylo didn't notice, or if he did, didn't react. He was adjusting the bomb's timer, it was still a bomb, and it would hurt a bit if it blew up in their face. The rest of the Ponies has evacuated to a safe distance where they could watch in safety. Derpy took a couple steps back and looked the bomb over, making a few observations.

"It doesn't look like any Assimadron machine I've seen, this is just a perfect cube, Assimadrons tend to use flowing shapes in the design of their... Things." Derpy observed, hovering over it. She then landed on the top, and looked around, imagining what the buildings would look like when they had been Ascended. Her eyes drifted over to the wall of a nearby building, and...

"Wait, what is that?" She thought, peering at some kind of, distortion. Looking harder, she could see something inside, what is it? Then the distortion "opened", and what Derpy saw almost made her weep tears of joy... Meanwhile, in Canterlot, an Assimadron was sneaking it's way into the throne room. It's task was simple, find the throne room, first of all, assemble a Gaseous Medicine Releaser, or GMR, and activate it once it had escaped, while staying undetected the entire time. Thank fr'ij it had a Personal Invisibility Shield, or PIS, to aid in this factor. But this Assimadron was having little luck, and ended up stumbling into the dungeon. Deciding it might as well make the best of it and record whatever was down here, it activated the recorder, and the Assimadron began to soundlessly explore the dungeon. The dungeon looked rather unused, but well kept, and the ground was void of dirt. The Assimadron exploring was an expert in stealth, having once been a stealth trooper on its homeworld long ago. This Assimadron is a what's known as a Vask, a fish-like race that had adapted to life on land swimmingly, (*groan*) and had been very happy to join the Assimadrons when they came. This one here is a male of his race, and his name was once Victor, but had changed his name to N1-NJA, but I'm going to call him Victor, because I can. (_**U MAD?**_) Victor thought the dungeon looked rather homely, being well-lit, cozy, and warm.

"Wonder why they don't just convert this place into a living area?" He thought as he continued his trek through the homely dungeon. When he came to a fork in the road, Victor chose to go left, just because, and not too long after that, he came to another fork in the road, one path leading into a bright hallway of more cozy, unused cells, but the left path went spiraling downward into darkness, and it seemed as if it was chiseled out recently, as the stone floor of the dungeon did not follow the left path. Feeling adventurous, Victor raced down the left path, night vision on for both him and the camera on his eye-plate. Back in Ponyvile, Xylo had set the bomb to go off in about 15 minutes.

"All finished Derpy. Derpy?" Xylo looked around, where had Derpy gone?

"Derpy?" He repeated, looking about.

"Up here..." Derpy said shakily and quietly.

"What's wrong?" Xylo asked, flying to the top of the PB.

"Can you see that?" Derpy asked, staring at the wall of a nearby building.

"See what?" Xylo asked, seeing nothing. He wasn't worried about the bomb going off while they were near it, they would just be "rebuilt" but Xylo had been blown up by a PB several times before, and it was most uncomfortable.

"That..." Derpy said, pointing at the wall again, a barely noticeable tear falling.

"I don't see anything." Xylo said, not noticing the tear. Derpy pulled up a live feed of her vision and transmitted it to Xylo.

"Look..." She said, about to cry.

"What could... Oh." Xylo saw a spatial distortion, showing a strange future, but Derpy was only seeing what was inside.

"Oh my." Xylo muttered in utter shock. Derpy was seeing a little filly, one with features amazingly similar to Derpy's, except a very dull purple coat, playing with a young... Chainling? Xylo gasped.

"The spatial distortion must be showing Derpy her future, but how is that possibly!? The chances of a spatial distortion appearing here and showing Derpy's future with her being here at the same time, are insane!" Derpy almost collapsed into tears of joy. She looked so happy, was she really going to be a mother? Her lifelong dream was to have a little filly of her own. How does Derpy know that filly is her's you ask? Experiments show that a mother can tell who their child is just by hearing them breathe! (**Holy fr'ij!**) And Derpy's got a full screen view, plus her eyes are identical to the way Derpy's point in two different directions at once. So there. Then, to both Derpy's and Xylo's surprise, Derpy HERSELF walked into view, fully Ascended, and said something inaudible to the filly, who made a sad face, and waved goodbye to the Chainling, who flashed a big fangy smile. Derpy's child suddenly stopped and looked, straight at them! Xylo gaped, and muttered some incoherent technobabble to himself. But Derpy smiled and slowly waved, more tears falling. The filly waved slowly back, then the spatial distortion closed, cutting them off. Derpy kept smiling and waving, as if she could still see her. Xylo shook his head a couple times.

"The odds..." Meanwhile, back in the dungeons of Centerlot. Victor had been walking down this path for such a long time now, he decided to turn around, but then again, maybe he was right there, maybe whatever was down here was just around the bend.

"I'll go just a little further." He thought, and sure enough, round the bend, there was a dead end.

"Well, at least I found the end." He thought, sighing. But there was a stone tablet embedded into the wall, with writing on it! It said:

_You've found the end,_

_Hip hip hoorAy,_

_But the pAth continues through._

_The pAssword you must sAy,_

_To open the path Anew._

_The queen you sAved,_

_What's her nAme?_

"Huh?" Victor blinked. "Queen you saved..." He thought to himself, utterly stumped, and he's a friccin' super-computer! (They all are. How else would the retain all that information about their empire? Sticky notes?)

"Why are all the 'A's capitalized as well?" Victor sat down and thought.

"Wait... A, could mean Assimadrons! And Vortexcia is technically a queen. And she's here! That must be it! But I'm a fish! I can't speak." Victor then realized he had a translator that turned his burbles into words.

"Vortexcia." He burbled, and the translator said: "Vortexcia." As soon as that word escaped the tiny translator's speakers, part of the wall to Victor's right slid back, and to the side, to reveal a hexagonal metal hallway leading into a larger cavern. Victor stealthily made his way into the larger cavern, and almost choked on his own water! It was massive! It seemed to go on and on, but what was really weird was the walls, ceiling, and floor were all made entirely out of a highly reflective gemstone of some kind, but large sections of these crystals have been removed and honeycomb-like edifices take their place. Some have stasis cells in them, with sleeping Chainlings inside, while other honeycombs have large glass tanks full of, gold gas.

"That is a lot of Chainlings." Victor thought, looking around at the swarms of these crosses between insectoids and horses, or ponies, or, whatever... **GAAH! SO CONFUSING!** Sorry, shall we continue?

...

Those in favor blink.

...

It passes unanimously, we'll continue. Ahem, anyway, looking around at the swarms of Chainlings flying about, some taking gold gas containers out of those honeycomb cells, others, putting them in. In the midst of all this hustle and bustle, Victor saw only one who was doing nothing, and that was Vortexcia. Wait what!? Vortexcia was down here? He could have sworn she was up in the throne room... Vortexcia was telling a story to a small crowd of younger Chainlings, upon closer inspection, thanks to his vision zooming-in ability, he saw that her lower stomach was bulging scarily.

"That looks very painful. I wonder if she knows I'm here." Almost in response, Vortexcia looked straight at him, but didn't react.

"I'm glad I have my PIS on, I have a feeling I shouldn't be here." And with that, Victor left, once more resuming his mission to heal Celestia, and on his way out, he thought,

"I can't believe she's that far along in her pregnancy, and still able to look after thousands of her children, and how does she remember all their names?" Victor decided to just not think about it. Vortexcia had seen him, however, inferred vision FTW!

"You were in a hurry." She thought as Victor ran out and disappeared.

"What happened next mommy?" One of the young Chainlings asked, visibly excited.

"Oh yess, the— AH..." Vortexcia doubled over. Collapsing onto her side.

"Mommy..?" One asked, no longer excited. Vortexcia clawed at the ground, leaving long scratches on the crystals.

"Ss-ss-ssorry..." She strained to say, refusing to let herself scare her little ones.

"...little oness..." She forced a smile.

"...mommy'ss... Not feeling too well, sshe needss a break..."

"Are you OK mommy?" One asked, rather frightened.

"...Per-per-perfectly fine deariess." She said as she attempted to stand.

"Mommy'll be-be right back..." She strained to say as 4 of her older sons flew down and helped her walk into a largish building. The young Chainlings huddled together when the door closed behind mommy, that was scary, mommy just fell over!

"What happened?" One whispered to itself. Another looked up and saw strange white canisters being carried off by their older brothers from the top of the building mommy is in, and placed in blue cells, where they were filled with gold gas. The young Chainling didn't know it, but those canisters contained Chainling eggs. Right now, I'll bet you're saying:

"But I, Darkstar X! What about the end of the last chapter? Didn't Klikker get paralyzed by Celestia!? **WHAT HAPPENED!?**" In answer, I say, Klikker, now paralyzed, could not maintain his invisibility field, and fell over. Right through the window. And onto the ground. Klikker thankfully survived, (?) but the paralyzingly spell Celestia had used prevented him from moving very much. Seeing a certain small alcove of rock, Klikker slowly made his way into the alcove, visibly struggling, but was able to reach his destination because Celestia hadn't assumed that the Chainling was an alien, and had targeted where she thought the nervous system was, thinking he was a Changeling. Once inside the alcove, he clicked a couple times, and a secret door opened, allowing him to escape into the cavern hive. Luna/Vortexcia was closer to the window, and told Celestia that it had disintegrated, which Celestia believed. Ok? Thank you. Victor raced back up the tunnel, through the dungeon, stopped to make sure his PIS was on, then stepped back out into the main palace. "I should have taken the left turn at the balcony." (C wot I did thar?) Victor thought as he backtracked to where he thought he made a mistake, and was surprised to see Celestia, on the balcony!

"Target spotted." He said to himself, scaling the vines on the wall beside the balcony, knowing that using his jetpack would most certainly give him away. Stealthily and silently, he dropped onto the balcony behind Celestia, and began to assemble the GMR. A GMR comes in 3 pieces, one piece is the main housing, the second is the remote controlled releasing mechanism, and finally, the gaseous medicine. The medicine was actually a cloud of microscopic nano-bots designed to infiltrate the brain and permanently neutralize the part of the brain causing her phobia, which were carried aloft by pure oxygen, not air, oxygen. There's a difference. Air has trace amounts of methane, hydrogen, and helium, along with a small amount of a bunch of other chemicals, besides oxygen. So there. Victor glanced behind him to see if there was anyone approaching that might run into him. He did see Vortexica, in her alicorn disguise, but she looked a little sick, and much thinner. She happened to look up, and saw him. Victor made the "Shhh!" sign with his hand and face, to which Vortexcia, or Luna, replied by nodding and winking at him. Victor gave a thumbs up, and then turned back to assembling the GMR he had. He was almost finished, he just had to insert the gas, close the lid, and put it somewhere where it would be inhaled by Celestia when he activated it, but wouldn't be discovered after emptying. Vortexcia jerked her head towards a nearby potted plant, and nodded. Victor returned the nod and placed the GMR behind the plant itself. Then he turned around to leave, and almost walked into Celestia! Victor countered by rolling to the side, but his exit was still blocked by Celestia.

"Those aliens have me worried, sister, something seems off about them." Celestia said, turning to Vortexcia/Luna. Luna smiled and said,

"Oh sis, you worry to much! I still can't believe there are aliens here! So exciting!"

"You seem awfully excited." Celestia raised an eyebrow as she said this.

"Aliens! From another planet! They took their time to do all of this just to be here! It makes me feel that we're special."

"You're right about that." Victor thought, activating his gas filter, deciding that he might as well activate it now. He sent a message to Vortexcia, (She was still Ascended, so she can receive messages like that.)

"I'm going to turn the gas on, hold you breath, and tell your sons that are in here to do the same." Vortexcia confirmed she had received the message by tapping her hoof 3 times. Victor waited a few seconds, then activated the GMR. Celestia coughed a few times, then passed out, while Victor hand a couple of PIS gas-masks to Vortexica to give to her sons, then he rocketed away, back to his ship so he could return to the Core. Just before reaching his ship, a ball of white erupted from the village called Ponyville. Victor stopped in his tracks, and stood at attention, facing the blast. He stayed this way until the dust cleared, and a sparking new Ascended Ponyville appeared.

"It's always nice to see a Phoenix Bomb go off, something, poetic, about it." He burbled to himself as he got back in his ship and flew off. Back in Ponyville, Derpy jolted awake, had she actually been blown up by the Phoenix Bomb? A wrenching sound to her left confirmed it. She, and Xylo, now finished emptying his stomach, had been blown up. And they were still alive?

"How is that even possible?" She thought to herself, utterly mystified.

"I'm surprised you haven't thrown up yet Derpy, that's usually the first thing someone does when they've been Phoenixed." Xylo said, coughing as he stood up and spit to the side.

"Don't-" Derpy began, but the violently vomited onto the ground in front of her.

"-jinx it." She gave Xylo an angry glare, but was unable to hold it and cracked up. Xylo followed shortly, falling over with howls of laughter.

"Derpy, you are perfect." Xylo thought sneaking a glance at Derpy's happy face, and smiled. That future didn't seem so far off after all.


	8. Chapter 6 Danger Signs

**_Chapter 7; Danger Signs._**

This has been one of the more shorter stories you've read, but, I regret to inform you there is little more that 3 or 4 chapters left in this story. I'm glad that those who have read this have enjoyed it immensely, also, why am I sayings this now? Anyway, let us continue. No time jump, only to the next day.

Xylo was looking at himself in a mirror. Fist with the visible spectrum, then with inferred, X-ray, vital signs, ultraviolet, then at his own data file, including operating system versions, brain size, memory space used, space available, and total memory space. He sighed, he was a cyborg, programmed by the L.O.R.D.s themselves to do only one thing: Ascend Equestron. He had completed his mission, but what next? He hadn't received any assignments, any notifications. But if he was a robot, why did he feel emotion? Such a characteristic would certainly act as an obstruction! But WHY then? Xylo shook his head sadly. It didn't matter how many times he argued philosophy with himself, it didn't change the feelings he had for Derpy. Even when he first laid eyes on her, he had fallen deeply in love with her, she seemed so sad when he first met her, and now she was happy, looking forward to the future she saw in the spatial distortion, but what Derpy doesn't know is that the future is not set in stone, it can be changed, but that wasn't relevant, he loved her. But why did he feel this way? He was a drone, a simple, common, drone. His only purpose was to tell others about the Assimadron way. (Philosophy ladies and gentlemen. Freakin' Philosophy. Guaranteed to give you a headache or your money back.) Xylo shook his head. Now was not the time to be thinking of such things, (Screw Philosophy! We're human beings, and our purpose is to not kill each other and stay alive for as long as possible. Simple.) he received a message from the L.O.R.D.s earlier this morning explaining how they had sent a stealth operative in to cure "Celestia's" mavrosmetallophobia, along with a video recording of the mission. Xylo didn't bother with the recording, he didn't feel like watching it.

"I'm so confused..." Xylo muttered sadly, and he closed his eyes and looked down, feeling sad enough to cry, but machines can't cry.

"Xylo?" A voice asked from behind him. Xylo jumped and spun around, but it was Derpy, and she looked rather uncomfortable. Xylo noticed a hint of red on her cheeks, and she wasn't one to use makeup. She jumped a little too, due to Xylo spinning around so fast.

"Oh, sorry Derpy. I didn't mean to startle you."

"Its OK Xylo, I should have knocked first." Derpy said. There was an awkward silence for a minute, but that silence was soon replaced with a loud crash, followed by angry ranting. Derpy's and Xylo's attention quickly switched from each other to the source of the crash. Xylo raced down the stairs, followed, more slowly, by Derpy. Xylo ran to the door and peeked out through the little peeper-hole-thing.

"Who is it?" Derpy whispered.

"Hmmm..." Xylo murmured, then he gasped and opened the door.

"Why must the stupid Phoenix Bomb not add—"

"Yezzim!" Xylo cried out as he raced forward towards a strange armadillo-like Assimadron, resembling a walking spike ball without the spikes. (?) The spikes were replaced with floppy antenna, with tiny radar dishes on the ends. Yezzim went quiet and spun to face Xylo, a large smile, or, at least a very bad attempt at one, spread across his face.

"Ahh, Xylo. How has it been?" Yezzim said in a disturbingly obvious mechanical voice.

"Too long my friend!" Xylo exclaimed bending down to Yezzim's eye-level.

"Yes, indeed. I came here to tell you that the L.O.R.D.s want you to supervise the terraforming process of this planet's moon, for the Chainlings. Also, the hive that Vortexcia has already constructed is designated to be moved to the moon as well." Xylo squinted with a puzzled expression, and was about to say,

"When Derpy and I confronted Vortexcia, she expressed no interest in terraforming the moon." But Derpy chimed in and said this for him. Yezzim turned to Derpy, now standing beside Xylo, and said,

"Ah, you must be Derpy, Xylo's secret love. (Xylo blushes and his eye does that weird shrinky thing that the other ponies do when they're freaked out.) He is also-"

"OK," Xylo quickly interrupts, clamping Yezzim's mouth shut with his hoof.

"I told you you needed to get that memory storer fixed, keeps making up stuff, he, he." Xylo chuckled nervously. Derpy giggled madly, also blushing, which made Xylo even more uncomfortable. Derpy was about to say something when there was a loud

"_**SHHHOOOOORM!**_" Coming from somewhere above them. All three looked up, and saw a rocket-like starship blasting off, heading for the moon.

"What is that?" Xylo wondered aloud.

"It's the terraforming equipment." Yezzim replied. Xylo gave him a puzzled look.

"Can't we just fly it up there in a ship?" Xylo asked.

"No, There's some kind of resonance coming from the moon, preventing a star-based drive from operating near it. So were using a solid fuel rocket instead." Yezzim answered, squinting up at the rocket as it blazed through the atmosphere. For the next few minutes, they just watched the rocket disappear into space, and when nothing remained of the rocket except a tiny speck of black, Yezzim pulled a small device from a small compartment, and handed it to Xylo.

"Here's the transporter. Use when you're ready. Meet you up there." Yezzim finished and pulled a matching device from the compartment, and pressed the red button in the middle. Then in the blink of an eye, Yezzim vanished like a light. Xylo was about to activate his, but Derpy stopped him.

"Xylo, before you go up there..." Derpy began, blushing again.

"Yes?" Xylo said, swallowing. He had a good idea of what she was about to say next.

"Uh, I just wanted to say that, Xylo... I-" Her words were suddenly interrupted by an extremely deep

"_**BOOM!**_", and three seconds later, a violent shockwave shook the ground, knocking both ponies to the ground, thankfully, their bone reinforcement keep their bones from liquidizing. Both strained to look up, but both wished they hadn't, for high above them, a huge plasma ball hung in the sky, right where the moon would have been.

"What the..?" Xylo exclaimed as he and Derpy were blasted off their feet by a second shockwave, which also uprooted trees and large mounds of earth and even whole boulders! One such tree was headed straight for Xylo, but he reacted by whipping out his plasma blade and slicing the tree in half, so as to avoid being smashed. Luckily, Ascendium is is designed to survive in space, so no damage was done to Derpy's house or the rest of Ponyville, but Canterlor wasn't so lucky, and large pieces of it cascaded down the mountain like a great stone-y avalanche. The worst was still to come. For now, massive pieces of the moon and spaceship started to rain down, smashing into the planet like meteorites! Once again, Assimadron "stuff", for lack of a better word, came to the rescue. Some ships intercepted some of the larger meteorites and vaporized them, preventing them from doing lasting damage to the planet or its inhabitants. That did not stop from the smaller pieces smashing into the planet, all kinds of things; Moon rocks, pieces of ship, moon rocks, some kind of tank, maybe for fuel, moon rocks, among other things. (Did I mention moon rocks?) Xylo and Derpy had to run around like headless chickens to avoid the destructive deadly derbies. ( :) ) Unfortunately, Xylo and Derpy ended up running into each other, knocking each other down. Before either could blink, a sizable chunk of moon rock landed on top of them with a loud and sickening "thud".

.

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THE END.

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**I'M KIDDING!** I'm kidding! The Ascendium upgrade to their bones saved them, plus, the rock was rather powdery due to its entry into the atmosphere, and shattered on impact. But both were mildly injured. Nothing a bunch of hyper-powered medical nano-bots can't fix. :) Xylo pushed the rock aside like it was paper, using ha PTB to help Derpy escape. Thankfully, the falling debris had passed their area for now.

"Derpy! Are you all right!?" Xylo asked above the roaring of more debris passing through the atmosphere.

"Yes! I'm fine!" Answered Derpy, quickly standing and casting her eyes about at all the wreckage.

"We better get inside, its not safe out here." Derpy nodded, but before they could do another thing, an escape pod smashed into the ground beside them, leaving a large crater. Xylo turned and slowly approached the capsule. Derpy followed behind him. When they reached the exit hatch, they found it to be sealed shut. But Xylo just ripped it off with his PTB. Derpy almost screamed when she saw who was inside. It was none other than...

"**VORTEXCIA!?**" Xylo exclaimed in utter shock.

"Xylo..." Vortexcia whispered raggedly.

"Yes, what is it?" Xylo asked.

"Xylo... Tell the L.O.R.D.s... That..."

"That what?" Xylo pressed. Vortexcia coughed, spraying globs of spit and blood against the windshield inside the pod, of which there seemed to be a lot, still wet, on the floor.

"...That we have... A...Code... X..."

Silence. Complete silence.

"Derpy." Xylo said, his voice serious. "I'm sorry."


	9. Chapter 7 Code X

_**Chapter 8; Code X.**_

Code X. Those two words have power to end wars, mend treaties, and restore purpose. Those words are the very essence of fear itself, striking terror into whoever hears them. If someone said: "Code X on Earth." Then prepare for a grisly, bloody, and painful end, for who knows how long you have. How long until you die. Just try it. Next time you meet an Assimadron or a Gearon or a Penginio or even a Floozeroc, just say that, and see the reaction for yourself. Even the proud, militaristic Gearons shrink in fear when they here those words. If you don't fear them, then you're next...

_**MEANWHILE, BACK ON EQUESTRON...**_

Xylo made the call. The call that brings even the easy-going L.O.R.D.s into action.

"Xylo, what's a Code X?" Derpy asked AGAIN. But Xylo didn't reply.

"This is L.O.R.D.0.1, what is it Xylo-Drone?" Xylo gulped, then said:

"Code X. I repeat, we have a Code X. Copy that?" Silence on the other side for a full minute.

"Copy that..." L.O.R.D.0.1 said meekly, then cut off the transmission.

"What's so bad about a Code X?" Derpy asked exasperated. Xylo turned around slowly, a large stream of tears running from his single biological eye.

"A Code X means your planet is doomed." Xylo said, almost choking on his own words.

"Remember when I said we looked for the Terror?" Xylo asked, looking down.

"Yes, why?" Derpy nodded. Xylo sprang forward, wrapping Derpy in a tender, but firm hug, tears pouring out of his bio eye.

"We didn't check the MOON!" He sobbed, burying his face into her shoulder. Any other day, Derpy would have been beating back giggles at the mere thought of Xylo hugging her, but now, even she could see that something was definitely wrong.

"Why is that bad, can't you just blow it up?" She asked.

"No, the Terror is too powerful, only two things can stop it, itself, or The Defenders." Xylo sobbed, pulling Derpy closer. Derpy couldn't hold back it all, and soon, a blush shined through.

"Th, then go get The Defenders." Derpy said, subconsciously running her hoof through his silky mane.

"The only way to call them is to use the Phoenix Bomb's Second Setting, but only 1 person can remember, and worst of all, I would have never existed..." Xylo whispered the last bit. Derpy swallowed.

"But there must be-"

"There is no other way Derpy. I'm sorry." Xylo said, lifting his head off of her shoulder, and looked deep into her eyes.

"And it doesn't make it easier that... I love you." With that, he landed a passionate kiss right on her lips. Derpy's eyes widened in shock, but then she kissed him back, savoring this memory in her mind. They held the kiss for as long as they could, almost a full minute. But Xylo reluctantly pulled away, much to Derpy's displasure. Both were blushing madly.

"Derpy, you should go home and rest. The Second Setting of a Phoenix Bomb can be rather unpleasant should one be awake." Derpy nodded. And slowly walked inside her house. Xylo flew to Ponyville, and that was the last Derpy ever saw of him in person. Derpy trudged up her stairs, and into her room, which was in much better shape, thanks to the nigh indestructible Ascendium. Derpy got into her bed and pulled the blanket her Unicorn grandmother (R.I.P.) had knitted for her, putting a spell on it that made it unbreakable, up her cold body, and was almost instantly warmed.

"Oh Xylo..." Derpy whispered to herself as she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep. But just before she fell asleep, she was awakened by a the strange feeling of something pulling her navel down and out. She sighed, and looked out her window. All she could see was the black of night, and she marveled at how time had flew. There was no moon, and no more Luna to raise it. That turned her attention to the Chainlings, how would they cope? Being a hive-mind, what would they do without their mother? Would they start to die? Would they suffocate!? She couldn't bear to thing about that. Even though they were weird, they were still living beings, and no being deserved to suffer. In reality, the Chainlings had sealed themselves in their "honeycombs" and were relying on the remaining gold gas to breathe. But Derpy didn't know this. She only knew that she would never see Xylo again, but she was wrong, she would SEE him again, but she would never MEET him ever again. A loud

"_**...cuuuuuuurAAAAAZZZZ!**_" Shook the very air, and everything was gone. Only Derpy was left. Floating in white. Only white. An expanse of white. Infinite. She couldn't speak, or breathe, but she didn't need to here, she was still being rebuilt, and only she would remember. After a few more seconds, the white turned to black, and Derpy was once more asleep, wrapped up in her magical blanket.

"_Xxyyllooo..._" Derpy moaned, remembering their passionate kiss...


	10. Chapter 8 The Ending (Duh)

_**Chapter 9; The Ending. (Duh.)**_

Derpy yawned, stretching as she sat up on her bed, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She shook her mane and looked out the window beside her bed. That's when it came flooding back to her. The Wormhole, the Assimadrons, the jetpack... Xylo... Derpy sighed. Xylo didn't exist anymore, at least, not the Xylo she knew. A message popped up in the lower left corner of her Retina HUD... Wait, she was still Ascended!? She looked down at herself, and sure enough, there were the bands of Ascendium, and the electrical machinery, and the other bits and bobs. But when she looked in a mirror, they all disappeared! She smiled.

"I think I glitched it..." She giggled mischievously to herself. Then she opened the message that had come in. It was from Xylo, he probably sent it before the Code X thing. She shivered as she thought those two words: Code X. She opened it and saw it was a video message.

"Video message?" Derpy thought as she opened it. Within a few seconds, a hologram appeared... Of Xylo. Derpy gasped, gazing at the familiar face, as if from a dream...

"If you can hear this then my theory worked. So yes, this message is from me to you. Directly. No stops, no check ups, nothing. Just me speaking my mind." Derpy shed a few tears. This was amazing. Xylo didn't even exist anymore, and yet here he was, life size. She felt like reaching up there and kissing him, but it was just a hologram.

"Derpy, that future you saw in that spatial distortional, isn't that far off, even though I'm not here, Vortexcia still is, and certain Assimadrons can get pregnant and create offspring. See, there are three levels that each drone passes through that trigger more Assimadron stuff, more wires, more chips, etc.. The first level is called Fledgling, or, Half-Bio, the second is Acolyte, or Non-Bio, and the third and final is HLD, or Final. Most Assimadrons are Half-Bio for the first 200 years of service, then they trigger a "level up", and become Non-Bio. After 800 more years, estimated, the Acolytes "level up" into Finals. As you may have guessed, Half-Bios still posses the genetic code for reproduction, but this goes away when they "level up" into Non-Bios." Derpy nodded, seeming to grasp the concept.

"So, it is possible for you to have children, just not the way you think." Derpy raised an eyebrow. That last remark confused her.

"Assimadrons can transfer thoughts as easily as light passes through air. It can take a huge toll on a Fledging's CPU and RAM. Some HLDs haven't even mastered this yet. I can transfer anything, from rocks to... "other things," observe..." Xylo's face screwed up in concentration, lights located on his heart and lower chest began to pulse red, faster and faster, brighter and brighter. Derpy had to look away to avoid being blinded. As the red light turned white, Derpy noticed that strange symbols were appearing all over her HUD, weird circles, spirals, masses of geometric shapes, concentric circles chained together, random letters, in all kinds of alien alphabets. Then the HUD flashed orange, and the white light vanished. Instantly, images of... Well, not really images per se, more like a feeling, someone else's feeling, that resonates off them and into you, but this was way more concentrated. The, "resonance" was love. Xylo's love, without a doubt. Derpy felt like he was in this very room, he could almost–

"**GAH!**" Derpy exclaimed, clutching her chest,

"Serious heartburn." Derpy whispered to herself. The heartburn bounced up and down, from her left back hoof to her skull, to her crotch and back again, and it increased speed, creating a bizzare triangle. Then it vanished. Derpy looked up, and screamed. Xylo had short circuited, or that's what it looked like, one of his jetpacks were burning, and steam was rising from his neck, and sparks were flying out of almost everywhere.

"_Damage critical. CPU and RAM failing. Shutdown imminent._" A barely audible computer voice said.

"Xylo..." Derpy whispered, crying. Xylo was in visible pain, but he couldn't move his head.

"Derpy..." He moaned, his voice crackling and fizzling as he spoke.

"Yes?" Derpy asked, forgetting that Xylo couldn't hear her.

"Derpy... I know... You'll be a... Good mo—therrrrrr..." His eye light switched off, and his body went limp, a single tear visible on his cheek. Derpy began to cry, he was truly dead. Xylo was dead. The hologram fizzled out and disappeared. Derpy collapsed onto her bed, crying and crying...

—|=|—

Billions of dimensions away, an alarm went off. Three draconic commandos quickly manned their mechs, and prepared to launch.

"Don't worry. We're coming..." One said as the DIMI Wormhole open beneath him and his two comrades, sending them straight towards the planet know by some...

**As Equestron...**

~THE END~


End file.
